Think about the person everybody calls when the process breaks. They know who to contact, catch what someone missed, and find a way to meet the deadline. You may already have someone in mind. You may be that person.
We can appreciate their contribution and still examine what we are asking of them. When someone repeatedly finds a way, leaders can lose sight of why another rescue was necessary. The work gets done, but the conditions requiring extra labor remain.
At All Aces, we use Human Duct Tape to describe an organization’s dependence on people filling gaps that have not been addressed. The phrase describes the dependence, not the people. Understanding it gives us a practical starting point for organizational resilience: identify what successful delivery requires, who supplies it, and what the organization needs to change.
Watch: The Hidden Cost of Always Relying on Your Best People
Watch the full video on YouTube, or use the examples and questions below in your next team conversation.
A Friday Deadline Can Hide a Broken Handoff
Imagine a team has promised a client a response by Friday. This is a hypothetical example. One department has the information; another must approve an exception. The request moves between them, but no one clearly owns the handoff.
By Thursday afternoon, the employee responsible for responding is still waiting. They have responsibility for the deadline without authority to approve the exception. An experienced colleague steps in, uses a personal relationship to get a decision, and works late to finish the response.
The client receives it on Friday. That result deserves acknowledgment. It also needs a fuller accounting. The colleague postponed her own work and gave up personal time. The next request may encounter the same delay.
Her success demonstrates what she managed to do under those conditions. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that the organization has a dependable, supported way to deliver the result.
Make the Extra Work Visible
Before purchasing software or scheduling another training, ask the people involved what the rescue required. In this example, the colleague found information, secured a decision through a relationship, rearranged priorities, and supplied additional time. Each action points to something worth examining.
Where should the information have been available?
What prevented a timely decision through the formal process?
Which responsibilities were displaced to meet the deadline?
Was the commitment realistic given the available time and staffing?
Protect time for this conversation. If reporting a capacity problem has previously been treated as a lack of commitment, people may be reluctant to tell you what the work really takes. How leaders receive that information affects whether they will hear it again.
Examine Who Carries the Burden
A recurring rescue also raises questions of justice. Who is expected to absorb the extra work? Who can decline safely? Who receives credit or compensation? Who gets criticized when their other responsibilities fall behind?
Examine whether race, gender, role, or employment status shapes whose time is treated as available and whose limits are respected. Do not assume the answer. Consider people’s experiences alongside the decisions that affect them. The same request can carry different consequences for someone with secure employment and someone worried about losing their job.
Fair treatment matters even when clients never see the problem. Cooperation and professional judgment remain valuable. Temporary coping can be necessary. When the same exception keeps recurring, leaders have a specific condition to address alongside their gratitude.
Use PORTE to Build Supported Delivery
In the Integrated Resilience Framework™, integrated resilience is the justice-grounded alignment of purpose, people, and process, enabled by the capabilities required to deliver on commitments.
PORTE stands for Plan, Organize, Resource, Train, Evaluate. Apply it to a bounded result, such as responding to a client by an agreed deadline, rather than treating it as a general checklist that proves the whole organization is ready.
Plan: Define the Commitment and Its Limits
Specify the response promised, its deadline, the conditions it depends on, and the path for exceptions. If the deadline cannot responsibly be met, establish who can renegotiate the commitment before it arrives.
Organize: Connect Responsibility With Authority
Name the handoff owner, the person authorized to approve an exception, and backup coverage. The employee carrying the deadline needs a usable route to a decision.
Resource: Make Time and Support Available
Identify the staffing, time, and information the work requires. Adding a responsibility does not create capacity. Decide what comes off someone’s plate or what additional support they will receive.
Train: Practice the Situation People Must Handle
Walk through the exception before a deadline is at risk. Confirm that the backup person can find the information and use the approval process. Give experienced colleagues protected time to share their knowledge; documentation should not become another unsupported assignment.
Evaluate: Check Delivery and Its Effects
When the next request arrives, examine whether the response was delivered, whether people obtained the decisions they needed, and whether extra hours or personal contacts were still necessary. Ask whether the burden decreased or moved to someone else. A written procedure provides something to test; its existence alone does not demonstrate capability.
Protect People While the Process Changes
Do not abruptly remove an essential workaround and leave employees or clients exposed. Arrange temporary coverage, adjust workload, or renegotiate a commitment where possible. Assign an owner and a review date to the temporary arrangement.
If you are the person repeatedly rescuing the work, you may not control staffing or policy. Where it is reasonably safe to raise the issue, make the dependency and required decision specific. For example:
To meet Friday’s deadline, I need an exception decision by Thursday afternoon. That approval is outside my authority. Can we name an approver and a backup? If the decision arrives later, we will need to adjust the deadline or decide which other work I should postpone.
This is a suggested request, not a guarantee of a fair response. Consider your circumstances and available support. Leaders remain responsible for how such requests are received and acted on.
Bring One Recurring Rescue to Your Next Team Meeting
Choose one recurring situation. Identify a handoff, approval, or deadline that repeatedly needs an individual rescue.
Account for the work. Ask those involved what it requires, including displaced responsibilities. Protect their time and do not require personal disclosures in a group.
Make one authorized change. Clarify a decision, provide coverage, adjust workload, or revisit the commitment.
Assign an owner and review date. Check delivery, extra effort, and whether the burden shifted elsewhere.
The first change may not be enough. Use what you learn to decide what to correct or test next.
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Explore the Integrated Resilience Framework at IRFhub.com for more on connecting commitments with the capabilities needed to deliver them.